Snowden throws spotlight on Carlyle Group's role in defence sector
Sophisticated asset manager has been trying to distance itself from extensive defence sector role
The Carlyle Group has spent years attempting to shed its image as a well-connected private equity firm leveraging Washington heavyweights in the defence sector. Instead, it nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railways to oil refineries.
The recent disclosures involving National Security Agency surveillance on US citizens by Edward Snowden, an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm majority-owned by Carlyle, has thrust two of Washington's most prominent corporate entities uncomfortably into the limelight, bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.
Everybody has a responsibility ... to bring in a certain amount of business
Snowden was fired on Tuesday after he confessed to being the source of the NSA reports. Federal investigators are examining how Snowden, who worked at an NSA facility in Hawaii and had also worked for the CIA, was able to gain access to sensitive information.
Carlyle declined to comment.
Booz Allen, has been a fixture in the Washington area for years, employing thousands and providing management and consulting services to the government, particularly the defence and intelligence agencies.
Those government contracts, and thousands more like them, in 2008 made Booz Allen a ripe acquisition target for Carlyle.
It paid US$2.54 billion for Booz as a deep recession took hold.